God the Listener

We talk a lot about how awesome God is.  God is awesome in all kinds of ways, of course.  God created the world and everything in it.  God can be everywhere at once.  God can be in the past, the present, and the future at the same time.  God knows all and sees all.  God is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, almighty, all-wise, all-caring, all-compassionate, all-merciful, all-caring, all-loving, and all-just about everything you can think of.

But here’s one aspect of God we rarely talk about.  In addition to being all of those things, God is also an incredible listener.

Have you ever thought about that?  I don’t know if I have.  Maybe, compared to all the other things God is, being a great listener doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to you.  But I think it is.  I think it’s one of the greatest things about God.

Do you ever have something on your mind, and you feel like you want or even need to talk to someone about it, but you feel like there’s no one you can talk to?  Either there’s no one you can trust, or there’s no one who’d understand, or there’s no one who’d even think it was important.  Or, if there is someone you can trust who’d understand, you feel like it’s too personal, or it would bother them too much if you told them.  And so, you keep it inside.

And sometimes, when we have stuff like that going on, we don’t expect or even want someone to help us.  We’re not looking for advice.  We’re just looking for someone to listen.  We know the situation is not going to change.  We know we have to face it and deal with it.  And we know that other people have problems that are worse than ours.  We’re not looking for someone to give us a solution.  We just need to express our feelings.  We just need someone to talk to.

Well, when you feel like that, know this:  you can talk to God.  You can always talk to God.  I do.  You don’t have to say it out loud--we can talk to God silently if we want to--but I find that it helps me to actually put it into words.  Find a quiet place, a place where no one can hear you and no one will bother you, and start talking to God.  You can tell God anything.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It doesn’t matter if someone else might not think it was important.  It doesn’t matter if it sounds like you’re whining.  It doesn’t matter if it’s something really personal.  You can tell God anything.  God will listen.  Because God is a great listener.

I wonder sometimes if that might be part of what Jesus was doing when he went off by himself.  There have to have been times when Jesus felt like he had no one to talk to.  Yes, he had the disciples, and that probably helped, but the disciples could not understand what Jesus was going through.  Not really.  They tried, but the disciples could not even understand the basics about Jesus.  How were they going to understand what it was like to be Jesus?  So, maybe, one of the reasons Jesus went off by himself was just to talk to God, to tell God everything he was going through, knowing that God would listen.

So, whatever may be on your mind this week, and whatever may be in your heart this week, talk to God about it.  God is always there.  And God will always listen.  Because God is a great listener.